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March 17, 2011
Poetic Justice in Brooklyn
Gideon's Trumpet
Property-rights advocate Gideon Kanner is shedding no tears for those who helped shill for Bruce Ratner but now might have found themselves on the short end of the fix.
It has been a familiar phenomenon that after a controversial redevelopment project is approved, what comes out of the municipal/redevelopment sausage machine is not necessarily what was promised to the public and the courts.
...But it’s a case of poetic justice with a dollop of schadenfreude when the screwees of such a shift in plans turn out to be former supporteres of the original redevelopment plan. And just that is apparently what is happening in Brooklyn.
One of the major points urged in favor of the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn was that its construction would create jobs. In fact, according to the New York Times, when the targeted locals, protesting their coming displacement by eminent domain, appeared at community hearings, local union lads would drown them out with chants of “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” But guess what?
It now turns out that Forest City Ratner, the Atlantic Yards redeveloper intends to use modular construction to put up some of the buildings now planned for that project. What that means is that much of the construction will be accomplished in factories whose employees get paid a lot less than on-site construction workers.
...Anyway, this development is infuriating the construction workers, the selfsame folks who were such supporters of the Atlantic Yards projects and who cheered on as the indigenous inhabitants of the project area were pushed aside to make room for Ratner’s construction plans.
...Moral: when you demand that someone else’s rights be subordinated to what you claim to be ”the public good” that will put a buck or two into your own pocket, don’t be too surprised if in the event that “public good” bites you in the posterior as well.
Posted by eric at March 17, 2011 4:27 PM